Leaderboard

Amen. Especially if you find a non TFI unit on a base by themselves. 100% pure gold best thing going. IMHO.

Oh man that's so true. I tell people when I look back on it, the Air Force NEVER taught me to fly a plane. They handed me a manual and some CBTs and I taught myself. The Air Force simply provided a safety net of expereinced pilots in the back seat in case I screwed up who ensured I was continuing to make progress before letting me fly myself in a hole.

SNAP

104 aircraft built 104' wingspan F-104 cockpit. If you see one in a museum or on a pole, it was one of the 55 smaller A/C models. The last of those flew in '87. The big-wing jets: 12 built originally, then 37 more built in the 80's (as mentioned above), with the last jet being delivered Oct 1989. History info: short read with updated info on the Powers shutdown. Good stuff. https://dragonladyhistory.com/2020/05/01/u-2-mayday-shootdown-gary-powers/

There's no decision that's too conservative for the risk-averse faction of AF management.

I only regret that I have but one like to give this post. Also, don't join the reserve squadron embedded into your current AD wing and expect all that much to change. The people who say it isn't that bad, have never really experienced life in elsewhere.

I agree. There seems to be the idea that experience = good IP in the military. You can be the best pilot in your community, but that doesn’t mean you can teach worth a damn or train someone to be half the pilot you are. There are some totally awesome teachers in UPT, and many who aren’t. I don’t know what the environment is like now, but when I went through you weren’t a young copilot or wingman in the squadron, you were just some student they had to deal with. IFF was the first experience I had that made you feel like you were a part of the team. I just hate when people go around telling the LTs that UPT is the best time of their lives, because for many it’s not. When you're sitting in the suck and hating it almost every minute of it, while having people constantly tell you this is the best part of your career, its very demotivating. Why would someone willingly want to keep going, when you're telling them there is no light at the end of the tunnel?

Appreciate the good words-- it's always been about trying to make sense of this crazy ride. whether it's barbs and spears I'm throwing, or making reflections of, or commentary on, things I've seen--the artwork (and sometimes the writing) serves, for me at least, as the medium through which I'm exploring, coping, and sometimes trying to shape. There's more that's never seen the light of day (sometimes that's a good thing), and I'm working on (yet another) side project that puts everything together-- from the first days of the Dodo as a SMACK at the zoo, through eDodo and anything in between. There's a lot of started-but-never-finished projects in there... alot of things that started as good ideas but just ran out of time or inspiration... One of the projects that I still consider one of the greatest missed opportunity was an attempted collaboration with other mil cartoonists around the 2009 timeframe. Air Force Blues was at its heyday... the B-52 toon kicked ass, and there were mil cartoonists that were just killing it left and right. I had the idea that we could all get together on a collaboration that took our characters to a Red Flag-- the audience would see the same scene from multiple perspectives such as the initial mass brief-- each artist would tell a part of the story (and you'd see the others in the background or silhouetted to keep the continuity... it'd progress through the flying and culminate in an absolute riot of a Friday night that I envisioned would be like the hotel scene in the Reno 911 movie... and then we'd all retreat to our individual comics again with a slight walk-of-shame cloud hanging over us all in a "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" moment. Never even made it past the idea stage... and then we all just seemed to grow up overnight and our works were overcome by events. It is funny how things come full circle... and now being on the backside of the power curve, I feel like I've got a little more time to get back to the works. Man, it was so much easier when eDodo was around. Times have changed though... social media eclipsed most websites, and humor has been pushed into sound-byte clips that can be quickly digested by instagram users; I wonder how eDodo would even be received by the current generation, though I suspect that. like most cult-followings, it would take root again and flap its fat little wings to make waves... just like always. Cheers, Zero

Eff it, I can’t read good.

Formation landings are an unnecessary risk and have no reason to be done. They should be removed from UPT. When shit goes bad there’s very little chance of being able to recover from it. I have only done 1 in the CAF, and that’s only because it was on an old syllabus that no longer requires them.

Cheers to them! Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

They didn't just stop form landings in the 38. If i recall, its an AETC wide FCIF prohibiting form landings until further notice.

UPT definitely is not the best part of a flying career, but I still generally had fun. Yes there was stress and I had some days I was pissed off, but in general it was not hell. I had awesome IPs and flight ccs for the most part, so I think that made the experience far better than it could have been. So yeah, it does get more awesome after UPT, but that doesn’t automatically make UPT shitty.

That’s funny because I spend a lot of time explaining basics that are covered pretty well in books that nobody is really reading. Teaching in T5001 is a lot different than teaching in N5107. If you require much instruction in N5107 you’re probably not ready for N5290. That’s as much our fault, I suppose, as it is Stan’s fault.

Seven years today. We’ll make sure no one forgets you. 🥃🥃🥃

Agreed with my esteemed colleague. Even as Reservists and not having the level of pressure to be top performers to have a better chance at a track or airframe, it’s still stressful. For me, I still had more stress in UPT (mainly T6s) than I’ve had in the few hundred burning buildings and hairy situations I’ve been in over more than a decade of playing fireman. Trying to balance family with UPT was another layer of stress. For me, family always wins, but I also have the lower impetus to be at the top since I’m set in my airframe and just not a type of personality that needs to be #1. My hat’s off to the bros and broettes that are I’m the AD fight for tracks and airframes; especially those with families and/or home issues. Sacrifices and compromises have to be made to balance it all and those are tough decisions. The uncertainty of how your hard work will play out is also killer. That all said, there are certainly fun moments and great times with great people in UPT. It’ll be among one of the only times in life where most of us were just tasked with learning how to fly airplanes and not having to deal with the queepy stuff that’ll be part of the world outside UPT. It’s one of those things that is easier to look back fondly on when it’s over than revel in while in the thick of it. I wish I enjoyed T6s more in the moment because it’s an amazing and fun airplane; especially with hindsight. Fire academy was the same; 6 months of suck/getting yelled at/repetition/etc. that I wouldn’t wanna do again, but was well worth the job the struggle earned that (mostly) gets better every day. But, by now, I am stoked to be a few rides from getting those wings and ready to move on to getting proficient at flying my MWS and hacking the mission. Not that 6-9 patterns/approaches/or turning rejoins aren’t fun, but feeling like more of a grownup and doing things for real in the plane I’m going to be flying for more than 6 months is going to be a nice change.

Thank God for the KC-46. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Helos did well in an air to air role in a documentary called “Firebirds” starring Nicolas Cage.

@HuggyU2 what was it like learning to fly in the T-6 Texan 1?

I just tell your mom to get it for me

Sad to hear how much of UPT has eroded. I can understand the immediate logic behind cutting sorties for T-1 students but the reality is the AF always made better pilots slightly above the cut of the civil sector because we focused on building good airman (in the occupational sense of the word) first. You may never do a loop in your RC-135 but the concepts behind energy management and visual ques translated over every platform in a multitude of other skill sets. More than that, you instilled fierce confidence that graduates were able to take airplanes and fly them at their performance envelopes. Simply put, there was a time where the Air Force cared about making great pilots first, and then finding a weapon system for them. Now the emphasis seems to be getting them to a weapon system, and we'll worry about the pilot stuff later.

I agree with you in general terms. Older generations tend to think they had it harder, uphill both ways, new kids just don't get it etc... But many of us have personally observed UPT get watered down in very measurable ways in the last 3-4 years. We're not talking long-term generational bias here. I saw the syllabi get noticeably shorter and less rigorous over the duration of one assignment. Just some T-6 examples since that's what I know: No more ELPs No more formation landings No more advanced aero for T-1 bound students Lower check ride MIF on a multitude of maneuvers 30% fewer sorties overall 50% fewer checkrides 50% fewer solos Now we can debate the pros and cons of each, but I think it's undeniable we are plainly doing less total training time and events. I've always said that if you get enough ADOs in a room who are worried about timeline, they could come up with a reason to waive any sortie in the syllabus. "What's one sortie after all?!" "Is the pattern-only solo really that important?" "Does this T-1 bound kid really need to form solo? Lets just waive it." This thought process is insidious and has resulted in a gradual whittling down of our core training. And it happens in all of the perfectly well-intentioned syllabus rewrite conferences too. Everyone is looking to "improve efficiency" because there isn't an OPR bullet for holding the line and keeping quality training the same. VR training was never intended (by the people developing it) to replace regular UPT events. Or speed up the pipeline. Or fix the pilot shortage. It was intended to improve training by providing an additional resource that was more accessible than standard sims. Having been involved with it from the very beginning, it's incredibly frustrating to watch the air force twist a good thing and pitch it as their silver bullet solution for problems they created.. But I suspect I am very much preaching to the choir. \endrant